WeGrowMedia - Dan Blankhttp://wegrowmedia.com
Tue, 03 Mar 2015 15:00:58 +0000en-UShourly1http://wordpress.org/?v=4.1.1Dan Blank interviews creative professionals who have taken the leap from merely dabbling with their creative vision, to becoming successful doers whose work has a positive impact on others.Dan BlankcleanDan Blankdan@danblank.comdan@danblank.com (Dan Blank)How to make an impact with your work.WeGrowMedia - Dan Blankhttp://wegrowmedia.com/wp-content/uploads/powerpress/Podcast1400-728.pnghttp://wegrowmedia.com
Becoming a Student of Your Own Creative Processhttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/WeGrowMedia/~3/_G6a4Qh-zJc/
http://wegrowmedia.com/becoming-a-student-of-your-own-creative-process/#commentsMon, 02 Mar 2015 15:03:16 +0000http://wegrowmedia.com/?p=11633In this guest post for Writer Unboxed, I explore the value of how we develop the skills to master our own unique creative processes. &#8220;How do you best create? How do you best write, collaborate, increase the quality of your work, improve your ability to focus, or increase the quantity of output?&#8221; &#8220;What actions are [&#8230;]<img src="//feeds.feedburner.com/~r/WeGrowMedia/~4/_G6a4Qh-zJc" height="1" width="1" alt=""/>http://wegrowmedia.com/becoming-a-student-of-your-own-creative-process/feed/0http://wegrowmedia.com/becoming-a-student-of-your-own-creative-process/Andrea Lekberg: Preparing for Successhttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/WeGrowMedia/~3/K3nHgmuU_bI/
http://wegrowmedia.com/andrea-lekberg/#commentsTue, 24 Feb 2015 23:20:34 +0000http://wegrowmedia.com/?p=11583For the past six years, Andrea Lekberg has run The Artist Baker, a boutique bakery &#038; cafe in Morristown, New Jersey. She graduated from The Art Institute of Chicago and The Cooking and Hospitality Institute of Chicago, and has worked at a long list of notable bakeries and restaurants. She is also &#8211; of course [&#8230;]<img src="//feeds.feedburner.com/~r/WeGrowMedia/~4/K3nHgmuU_bI" height="1" width="1" alt=""/>http://wegrowmedia.com/andrea-lekberg/feed/0For the past six years, Andrea Lekberg has run The Artist Baker, a boutique bakery & cafe in Morristown, New Jersey. She graduated from The Art Institute of Chicago and The Cooking and Hospitality Institute of Chicago,For the past six years, Andrea Lekberg has run The Artist Baker, a boutique bakery & cafe in Morristown, New Jersey. She graduated from The Art Institute of Chicago and The Cooking and Hospitality Institute of Chicago, and has worked at a long list of notable bakeries and restaurants. She is also - of course - an artist, who is currently working on a project about her Native American heritage.
I got to know Andrea when she offered to host a series of meetups I helped run with my friend Scott McDowell. I was always impressed by her wisdom, and how she balanced running a business, with growing as an artist and building not just a body of meaningful work, but a community of collaborators.
Click 'play' above to listen to the podcast, or subscribe on iTunes, or download the MP3.
This podcast is part of the research for a book I am writing called Dabblers vs. Doers, which is about working through RISK as you develop your craft and build a meaningful body of work.
Here are some key insights that Andrea shared with me...
On Taking the Next Step
"It's not that I was tired of working for people, but I was not looking forward to working for another chef or another owner. I felt that I kept finding myself in similar circumstances, so I wasn't growing. I talked to a friend who told me, 'if you are managing businesses, you are already doing all the work, caring about the business, caring about the people, worrying about numbers; but the benefit is you own it. It is easier to problem solve because you don't have an owner. As a middle manager, you always have to answer to the boss. Even though you are problem solving, it is not really your final word, so you are caught.' What he said was,'you are already there, just take the next step.'"
"There are different ways to grow professionally. I could have gone and worked for a hotel, and ran hundreds of people. Like go work in Las Vegas, and do pastries at a hotel where they are open around the clock, and you have a hundred people working -- that would have been a big challenge. But it wasn't a challenge I was looking for. I was looking for something more personal and more about my growth."
The Value of Taking the Time to Plan
She spent a year working on her business plan and working out her finances. "It was very helpful writing the business plan, because I was able to see how I could go from selling two cups of coffee a day, to grow from there."
"One thing I know about making a plan is that you can always change it."
"I spent a year writing the business plan and looking around at property, and I learned so much. I almost got two pieces of property, and felt like I met every asshole Charleston. I learned so much about leases. I signed a lease on one property, and the person was just using it to get another person to sign the lease. I was used, but I didn't know. Another time, I almost signed on a property, and the lease was a triple net, which means you are responsible for everything below the roof. Before I signed the lease, I had an inspection done, which I was paying for. I found all these problems, so I didn't sign the lease. It was interesting learning about what could happen -- what you are responsible for."
"I was looking around, and even though everybody was telling me how great the area was, how business was growing, I was not seeing any other businesses come into that area, and I was actually seeing businesses close. If you go by just walking around the street, and see what business are there, that really tells you everything about the town. That is the best thing to do. Ask yourself: what is not here, and why isn't it here. You start asking all of these questions."
I asked her why people skip such a foundational concept such as observation and asking questions, and she mentioned that sometimes people are just so driven by their concept, that they are essentially blinded to any other context or factors that can affect it.
Dan Blankclean42:48http://wegrowmedia.com/andrea-lekberg/Angie Pickman: The Artist Who Answered the Question, “Why can’t I be doing this for a living?”http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/WeGrowMedia/~3/CAhGyyIj66o/
http://wegrowmedia.com/angie-pickman/#commentsThu, 19 Feb 2015 13:02:10 +0000http://wegrowmedia.com/?p=11536Angie Pickman took a big leap, and completely failed. She opened a restaurant in Brooklyn that bled money, and closed six months later. What she did after that moment is inspiring: she turned that failure into a new opportunity, and then made a massive shift to do the unthinkable: make a living as as a [&#8230;]<img src="//feeds.feedburner.com/~r/WeGrowMedia/~4/CAhGyyIj66o" height="1" width="1" alt=""/>http://wegrowmedia.com/angie-pickman/feed/0Angie Pickman took a big leap, and completely failed. She opened a restaurant in Brooklyn that bled money, and closed six months later. What she did after that moment is inspiring: she turned that failure into a new opportunity,Angie Pickman took a big leap, and completely failed. She opened a restaurant in Brooklyn that bled money, and closed six months later. What she did after that moment is inspiring: she turned that failure into a new opportunity, and then made a massive shift to do the unthinkable: make a living as as a cut paper artist.
In this interview, Angie talks to me about:
How opening a restaurant and bakery made her comfortable with risk
The person she met who prompted Angie to ask herself this question with regards to her art, “Why can’t I be doing this for a living?”
How she made a massive life change, and built a runway long enough to get her art career off the ground
As she found success, how she finds herself needing to pull back in order to balance work and personal needs
Some background: Angie Pickman is a cut paper artist who operates under the moniker, ‘Rural Pearl’. This has been her full-time gig since 2009. She exhibits at galleries and art fairs nationally, does illustration work, and teaches various classes and workshops. She is a member of the Lawrence Art Guild and the Guild of American Paper Cutters. You can find a full list of her exhibits here.
Click 'play' above to listen to the podcast, or subscribe on iTunes, or download the MP3.
This podcast is part of the research for a book I am writing called Dabblers vs. Doers, which is about working through RISK as you develop your craft and build a meaningful body of work.
A sampling of Angie's art is to the right. Here are some key insights that she shared with me...
Becoming Comfortable With Risk
I asked her how she found the ability to take the leap to focus on her art full-time, she responded, "Having opened the restaurant and the bakery, I was like 'There's no fear, I can do this.' I at least have to try."
The restaurant and the bakery were no walk in the park:
With the bakery, "there were a lot of failures along the way where we had to back up, redo."
Her biggest challenge in opening the bakery: "The budgeting. We had no idea the type of money this was going to take. We got a bum deal with a terrible building and landlord. We jumped into it, and didn't have the attorneys we should have had, we thought we could read the lease and interpret it on our own. We had to close the place down six months after we opened it, it was just eating cash. We really tried, and we failed. I have never been embarrassed about the failing part. Now, if I would ever rent a retail space, the first thing I would do is get an attorney, and pick through that lease. "
"We definitely couldn't express our creativity with what was happening around us with our landlord."
When I asked how long the gap of time was between closing the restaurant and opening the bakery, she responded with a shocking answer, "Two weeks. Even crazier is I had a baby in the middle of it. I became a mom, I'm running this failing restaurant. Two weeks before my daughter was born, we closed the restaurant. Within a week - we were out peddling wholesale baked goods. We had this restaurant, we had these bills mounting up, we couldn't get out of the lease, so we had to think of something. People weren't going to come to us with what we had to offer; we didn't really know how to bake; we started baking little cakes and stuff and taking it out to coffee shops around Brooklyn and Manhattan. It really expanded, and it was definitely paying off after a year or two."
The Spark: "Why can't I be doing this for a living?"
Even though the bakery was doing well, she realized something: "This bakery thing isn't really working out -- it's not MY dream, I had a partner in it. I just realized I putting forth so much effort into this thing that was not really something that I wanted to be doing. The art just felt right."
"I met some creative people who were making a living as musicians, and I just thought to myself, 'Here are these people doing exactly what they want,Dan Blankclean38:44http://wegrowmedia.com/angie-pickman/The Benefits of Talking About My Book 1+ Years Before Publicationhttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/WeGrowMedia/~3/JpdH-EsiJVY/
http://wegrowmedia.com/the-benefits-of-talking-about-my-book-1-year-before-publication/#commentsTue, 17 Feb 2015 13:09:50 +0000http://wegrowmedia.com/?p=11256This post is a part of my behind-the-scenes series on a book I am writing called Dabblers vs. Doers. When I announced that I am writing a book last month, I did so at a time that is likely two years before it is published. I have not yet queried agents, not yet signed with [&#8230;]<img src="//feeds.feedburner.com/~r/WeGrowMedia/~4/JpdH-EsiJVY" height="1" width="1" alt=""/>http://wegrowmedia.com/the-benefits-of-talking-about-my-book-1-year-before-publication/feed/11http://wegrowmedia.com/the-benefits-of-talking-about-my-book-1-year-before-publication/Rachel Fershleiser: A Career Built on Enthusiasmhttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/WeGrowMedia/~3/OeclDWJQIF0/
http://wegrowmedia.com/rachel-fershleiser/#commentsTue, 10 Feb 2015 23:22:29 +0000http://wegrowmedia.com/?p=11474Today I&#8217;m speaking with Rachel Fershleiser, who describes herself this way, &#8220;I&#8217;m someone who gets really psyched about books on the internet, and I help others do it too.&#8221; I am so inspired by not just the scope of Rachel&#8217;s work over the years, but how much she is an enthusiastic champion for others. In [&#8230;]<img src="//feeds.feedburner.com/~r/WeGrowMedia/~4/OeclDWJQIF0" height="1" width="1" alt=""/>http://wegrowmedia.com/rachel-fershleiser/feed/2Today I'm speaking with Rachel Fershleiser, who describes herself this way, "I'm someone who gets really psyched about books on the internet, and I help others do it too." I am so inspired by not just the scope of Rachel's work over the years,Today I'm speaking with Rachel Fershleiser, who describes herself this way, "I'm someone who gets really psyched about books on the internet, and I help others do it too." I am so inspired by not just the scope of Rachel's work over the years, but how much she is an enthusiastic champion for others.
In this interview, Rachel talks to me about:
How her career has been driven by enthusiasm, not blindly pursuing job titles
The role that volunteering for organizations and championing others has played in her life
How she collaborated with others to organize hundreds of live events
The story behind crafting a "feisty" voice online, and where her boundaries are
When she knew the time was right for a big career move
The value of embracing individual connections that are meaningful, not 'going viral'
Some background: Rachel Fershleiser works on Tumblr’s outreach team, specializing in publishing, nonprofit, and cultural organizations. Previously she was the community manager at Bookish and the director of public programs at Housing Works Bookstore Café, where she now serves on the board of directors. She is also the co-creator of Six-Word Memoirs and co-editor of the New York Times bestseller Not Quite What I Was Planning and three other books.
Her Kickstarter campaign for Stock Tips: A Zine about Soup earned 13 times its initial funding goal. She also runs The Reblog Book Club which is Tumblr's Official Book Club.
Click 'play' above to listen to the podcast, or subscribe on iTunes, or download the MP3.
This podcast is part of the research for a book I am writing called Dabblers vs. Doers, which is about working through RISK as you develop your craft and build a meaningful body of work.
Here are some key insights that Rachel shared with me...
When Pigeonholed in Jobs She Didn't Love, She Said, "Let's Recalibrate"
"I did PR for broadway shows, I didn't necessarily want to do PR, or even knew what PR was. I wanted to make people excited about theater."
"Then, when I was unemployed, all I wanted to do was read books. But I wasn't one of these people who wanted to work in publishing my whole life. When I went to look for publishing jobs, I was applying for editorial assistant. They were like, 'Oh, you have PR experience.' I went in for an editorial job, and was offered a PR job."
"So I said, 'Okay, I'll make people really excited about books!'"
But PR isn't all about enthusiasm, you are given books to work with, not all of them you are genuinely excited about. Rachel continues...
"I quit my job without another job lined up. But I was living in a 6-floor walk up with 3 other girls; I was paying $700 rent; I did not have a lot of debt; I was not taking money from my parents, but knew I could if the situation got desperate; I had no kids or responsibilities; so I figured: let's recalibrate."
Volunteering
Rachel chooses to volunteer; chooses to get involved; chooses to champion things. This is a thread throughout her career.
She started at the most basic level at Housing Works Bookstore, and worked through the ranks and got more involved. "I was a volunteer (four hours per week), then I was a part-time bookseller, then I was a full-time bookseller, I was director of public programs, and now I'm on the board."
Rachel's other volunteer work includes:
Housing Works Bookstore
Wordstock Advisory Committee
National Book Foundation
Committee for The Common literary magazine benefit
The Guernica magazine benefit
LitCrawl
CLMP
Collaboration Mastermind: Organizing Hundreds of Events
At Housing Works Bookstore, she crafted events with others in a collaborative manner, and didn't just book basic readings. She crafted readings, book launch parties, poetry, dance events, music concerts, and more.
Her specialty? "My passion is like, okay, we've got four different debut novels with a thru-line, and if we get all of those writers together, and get this band to play,Dan Blankclean39:06http://wegrowmedia.com/rachel-fershleiser/My Podcasting Equipment – Update!http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/WeGrowMedia/~3/hfsFPeha2SE/
http://wegrowmedia.com/my-podcasting-equipment-update/#commentsMon, 09 Feb 2015 12:45:59 +0000http://wegrowmedia.com/?p=11173This post is a part of my behind-the-scenes series on a book I am writing called Dabblers vs. Doers. Back in 2012, I began exploring podcasting, and purchased some audio equipment that would ensure a high quality listening experience. I shared the list of podcasting equipment I bought in this blog post, which included: Heil [&#8230;]<img src="//feeds.feedburner.com/~r/WeGrowMedia/~4/hfsFPeha2SE" height="1" width="1" alt=""/>http://wegrowmedia.com/my-podcasting-equipment-update/feed/6http://wegrowmedia.com/my-podcasting-equipment-update/Julia Fierro: Working Through Anxiety to a Wildly Productive Creative Lifehttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/WeGrowMedia/~3/IkQiHT2jVtQ/
http://wegrowmedia.com/julia-fierro/#commentsThu, 05 Feb 2015 13:52:28 +0000http://wegrowmedia.com/?p=11413What Julia Fierro has accomplished is astounding. She is the author of Cutting Teeth and the forthcoming The Gypsy Moth Summer, she runs the Sackett Street Writers&#8217; Workshop which has had more than 2,500 writers pass through it in more than 12 years, she is a teacher, has been published in many prominent magazines and [&#8230;]<img src="//feeds.feedburner.com/~r/WeGrowMedia/~4/IkQiHT2jVtQ" height="1" width="1" alt=""/>http://wegrowmedia.com/julia-fierro/feed/0What Julia Fierro has accomplished is astounding. She is the author of Cutting Teeth and the forthcoming The Gypsy Moth Summer, she runs the Sackett Street Writers' Workshop which has had more than 2,500 writers pass through it in more than 12 years,What Julia Fierro has accomplished is astounding. She is the author of Cutting Teeth and the forthcoming The Gypsy Moth Summer, she runs the Sackett Street Writers' Workshop which has had more than 2,500 writers pass through it in more than 12 years, she is a teacher, has been published in many prominent magazines and media outlets, and is a wife and mother of two. What makes her accomplishments so much more intriguing is how open she has been about her struggles with anxiety and OCD. She described it this way in Poets & Writers magazine:
"The Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder I’d struggled with since childhood, pushed me into a cycle of episodes, both depressed and obsessive, that would make it difficult for me to leave the house, socialize, write, and even read for years."
In this interview, Julia talks to me about:
How she started The Sackett Street Writers' Workshop, beginning with a simple personal goal.
How (and why) she runs the organization without an administrative assistant.
How her obsessive compulsive issues and anxiety have at times hindered her creative work, and at times helped it.
Why she couldn't write for years and years as she taught other writers, and how she was eventually able to write and publish her novel Cutting Teeth.
Her own unique "balance" of teaching, writing, running the workshop, and raising two kids.
How she loves and embraces social media, but puts firm boundaries on it to ensure it doesn't become debilitating.
Click 'play' above to listen to the podcast, or subscribe on iTunes, or download the MP3.
This podcast is part of the research for a book I am writing called Dabblers vs. Doers, which is about working through RISK as you develop your craft and build a meaningful body of work.
Here are some key insights that Julia shared with me...
STARTING & RUNNING THE SACKETT STREET WRITERS' WORKSHOP
"I am not your typical business-woman. My clear intention was not to start a business. I put an ad on Craigslist in 2002 because I was lonely, and I wanted to have a workshop in my home. I had this big disappointment in my first novel being rejected by editors. I was just feeling so broken and lacking in confidence. I needed to remove myself from the literary scene in New York, because I wasn't feeling good about myself. I think there are times you have to remove yourself from the intensity of the world of your work, so you can find yourself again and become more centered. So I put this ad on Craigslist for writers of all levels, I didn't screen them, I had no idea who was showing up to my house, and it was just so comforting to be working with a tiny community. Then it grew and grew, I was teaching four nights a week in my home, and people started calling me a "school." I realized legally that I had to incorporate."
"I'm the only administrator, because I can't afford to hire an assistant because life in New York is so expensive. And also because I am a micromanager. I really feel like I am the person who will answer emails with a personal stake in the exchange. I do get 50-80 emails a day. I do get behind on email now. To write the next book, I have to LET myself get behind. I can't just answer emails as soon as thy come in, which I feel like a lot of people expect you to do."
HOW SHE MANAGES IT ALL
"It's really unhealthy. Because of my lifelong obsessive compulsive issues, I have been able to cope with well these last couple of years because of Zoloft, which I'm starting to be more open about. I need to be busy. I find I'm happiest when I'm like a workaholic. This busy age that we live in is great for an obsessive person."
"It's hard for me to run the business, and write, and teach."
"I still can't believe I have accomplished even a tiny bit of what I have. I have such debilitating anxiety for so many years. Even when I was first starting Sackett Street, and all those years of teaching, students would be like, 'you are changing my life,Dan Blankclean45:09http://wegrowmedia.com/julia-fierro/Why Email Newsletters?http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/WeGrowMedia/~3/3WgZyOWPyqw/
http://wegrowmedia.com/why-email-newsletters/#commentsThu, 29 Jan 2015 13:10:32 +0000http://wegrowmedia.com/?p=11404In my recent guest post for WriterUnboxed.com, I reviewed the reasons why a writer or creative professional should consider having an email newsletter: If you are skeptical about email, you are not alone. What do you share in a newsletter? One thing: enthusiasm. How often to send a newsletter? Often enough to matter: weekly. How [&#8230;]<img src="//feeds.feedburner.com/~r/WeGrowMedia/~4/3WgZyOWPyqw" height="1" width="1" alt=""/>http://wegrowmedia.com/why-email-newsletters/feed/0http://wegrowmedia.com/why-email-newsletters/Sarah Bray: Earning a Living as a Creative Professional with 1,000 True Fanshttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/WeGrowMedia/~3/w5zY1erBNAc/
http://wegrowmedia.com/podcast-sarah-bray/#commentsTue, 27 Jan 2015 21:26:16 +0000http://wegrowmedia.com/?p=11365Sarah Bray is a living embodiment of the 1,000 true fans ethos; She has a thriving career as a creative professional, by catering to a small group of like-minds who know and appreciate her work. Just before we spoke, Sarah was thrust into a career transition when she was laid off from her job. In [&#8230;]<img src="//feeds.feedburner.com/~r/WeGrowMedia/~4/w5zY1erBNAc" height="1" width="1" alt=""/>http://wegrowmedia.com/podcast-sarah-bray/feed/2Sarah Bray is a living embodiment of the 1,000 true fans ethos; She has a thriving career as a creative professional, by catering to a small group of like-minds who know and appreciate her work. Just before we spoke,Sarah Bray is a living embodiment of the 1,000 true fans ethos; She has a thriving career as a creative professional, by catering to a small group of like-minds who know and appreciate her work. Just before we spoke, Sarah was thrust into a career tran...Dan Blankclean34:04http://wegrowmedia.com/podcast-sarah-bray/Calculating the ROI (return on investment) of Why I Am Writing a Bookhttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/WeGrowMedia/~3/t5aVa-t-wY8/
http://wegrowmedia.com/calculating-the-roi-return-on-investment-of-why-i-am-writing-a-book/#commentsTue, 27 Jan 2015 13:45:53 +0000http://wegrowmedia.com/?p=11064This post is a part of my behind-the-scenes series on a book I am writing called Dabblers vs. Doers. &#160; How can I justify the time, energy, and money to write a book? We all know the common reasons that people write books, from basic validation and expression, to the drive to share, entertain, and [&#8230;]<img src="//feeds.feedburner.com/~r/WeGrowMedia/~4/t5aVa-t-wY8" height="1" width="1" alt=""/>http://wegrowmedia.com/calculating-the-roi-return-on-investment-of-why-i-am-writing-a-book/feed/3http://wegrowmedia.com/calculating-the-roi-return-on-investment-of-why-i-am-writing-a-book/